Mind Games
by child-dragon
Summary: Shady used to be part of the Imperial Guard.  After an eldar Farseer ransacked her head, she found other employment, and thought the matter over and done with.   But eldar plan long-term and use whatever tools are at their disposal...
1. How I was Kicked out of the Guard

The first blow slammed my face in the dirt. One moment I was staring down the scope of my rifle, watching the scene waver as my muscles trembled, waiting for the target to drift into the crosshairs; the next everything was pitch-black and my head was spinning from the force of the blow. My gun was underneath me, the points digging through my uniform into flesh. Men may complain about getting kneed between the legs – and while I'll concede that one to them – I do have to say that having something sharp and metal jammed into your boob is not exactly pleasant either. There was a hand in my hair, holding me face-down to the ground, and roughly a hundred-plus worth of weight was concentrated into a small area pressing on the small of my back. I had been on my belly to begin with, using the ground for both concealment and to steady my rifle – now I was splayed there and someone was ensuring I wasn't getting _off_ the ground anytime soon.

'Go shoot the Eldar Farseer,' they'd said, 'One shot and we don't have to waste our men in some drawn-out affair with them damn aliens picking us off one by one. Also: you're totally expendable if you screw up. In fact, I think we paid more for your gun than what we pay you.'

Okay, so that wasn't quite what my Commissar said. He used pretty words like 'tactical' and 'in service to the Emperor.' However, I am a soldier. I know how to cut through the bullshit. I knew what he meant to say, what he was saying in his heart.

There wasn't much I could do. My rifle was resting against my sternum, my bolt pistol was at my waist and might as well be a mile away with the disadvantage my assailant had me at, and all I could do was lay there helplessly and try not to inhale dirt. He apparently had friends, for I felt hands briefly flutter across my body and the weight of my gun, knife, and anything else of tactical value quickly vanished. The grip on my hair vanished and was replaced by a hand on either of my arms and then the eldar removed his knee from my back and I was hauled to my feet and away from my sniper rifle. My weapons lay in a discarded heap off to the side. I snapped my gaze from side to side and took in my situation. There were three of them, their armor hidden under cloaks that seemed to shiver as they moved, the colors tasting their surroundings and shifting to mimic them. They carried the elegant rifles of their kind and every single of them was at least a foot taller than me. Their eyes looked at me dispassionately, examining their capture as clinically as an inquisitor, unfeeling, uncaring. I would have preferred hatred or disgust. Anything to make me think they weren't so remotely alien.

"You will come with us," the one that seemed to be their leader said – at least, I guessed he was in charge by the way he stood and how the others oriented towards him.

Fantastic. I couldn't be more fucked unless I stripped naked, bathed in marinade, and paraded in front of a Tyranid carnifex.

I expected stares of curiosity or disdain – just anything to acknowledge that their scouts were dragging in a captured Imperial guardswoman. But to the eldar war-force, I simply didn't matter. I was ignored by all but my immediate captors, and even then they didn't bother to bind my hands or anything. Taking away my weapons was enough. I wasn't enough of a threat to matter more. That stung. It really stung. A few more seconds I would have had a clear shot at their leader and those rifles are designed to pierce through anything – including eldar armor. The tech-priests regularly serviced and blessed my weapon, which was probably why it was worth more than me. I was a good shot, sure enough – good enough to be the unit's sniper – but humans came in multitudes. We didn't so much as expand across the galaxy as consume.

The eldar force was clustered around an ancient structure of theirs, something left over from when they had been in far greater numbers than they were now. I wasn't sure what it was for. The locals avoided the ruins out of superstition and my Commissar didn't see fit to explain much more than the bare facts. There was an eldar artifact on this world. The eldar had moved in one night in force. The Imperium didn't like this. We were here to kick them off our world. The initial foray had gone badly for us, with the eldar simply scattering once they bled us a bit. They didn't seem terribly concerned about holding the actual ruins, but rather just staying near it. And our commanders rightly feared that if we took charge of the ruins and held it, they'd be content to launch raid after raid and whittle us down until nothing but skeletons remained. For the moment, they held the ruins. I could see their shapes in the darkness, all tumbled metal and other materials common among their kind. The presence of the aliens did nothing to relieve the haunted feel of the abandoned structures – they did not return life or vitality to the buildings. They were like ghosts in the night, lithe, graceful, and silent.

I realized with dismay that the scouts were steering me towards the very Farseer I had been sent to kill. He stood in the shadow of one of their tanks, sitting idle with its belly flush against the ground. His helmet was off and his armor was swathed in black robes trimmed with white edges and intricate patterns. A sword was slung at his narrow waist. His brown hair was bound back and fell to the middle of his back and what little light there was caught at jewels in his earlobes. I could feel the power even when we stopped a respectful distance away. The eldar took no notice at first, finishing his conversation with someone important, if their armor was any judge. I had thought to take a shot at him next, assuming the one meant for the Farseer had gone off as intended. That's me. Selflessly serving the Emperor in all things. I would have been praying at that moment if I could just remember the correct literature. There had to be a prayer for being captured by aliens. They had prayers for just about everything: about to be eaten by a genestealer, prayers for tumbling towards a black hole, prayers for when suffering from constipation, etc. My Commissar would be most disappointed if he knew I couldn't come up with anything but a dull sort of shock. It was as if my brain had shut down from the moment an eldar scout landed on my back.

Then the Farseer took notice of me. I wanted to be back on the dirt, only this time curled up and hiding in some foxhole where no one could see me and I wasn't caught here in the open, vulnerable under the gaze of a being that I could not comprehend. I searched for any sign of humanity on his angular face, anything that would serve to dispel the terrible knowledge that even though he looked like us, he wasn't one of us. In turn, he searched for something and I felt awkward and ungainly under his examination. I may be expendable to the Imperium, but to this eldar was I less than that. My existence was nothing compared to the vast weight of power and eons that hung around his shoulders and I felt ashamed for simply standing there. I dropped my gaze, trembling, and stared at the ground.

I heard the swish of his robes as he moved closer and then he stretched out a hand and his fingers touched my brow. My muscles froze and I wasn't sure if it was my fear that did this or if they reacted to some unspoken command from the Farseer. My world narrowed to the touch of his hand and my vision blacked out. His power pressed in on me, like searing heat suffusing my body, and my mind was lay bare. There was no pain. Unlike our own psykers, he had enough experience to navigate the corridors of my mind without tearing down the walls – perhaps the human mind was simplistic to something like him. I felt his indifference as a physical thing, the quick glance he gave to my life and then how quickly and easily he discarded it as trivial. All my hopes and fears and memories were tossed aside like they were but a moment – here, gone, and then forgotten. What he did to my mind, I could not tell. He changed something. His will was absolute. Then his presence was gone, he withdrew his hand, and he was walking away. I fell to my knees, tears streaming down my cheeks, my breath coming in short gasps. I barely registered that the scouts were pulling me to my feet and pulling me away from the eldar encampment.

They left me where I would be found by my own side. One of them told me – and this was about the only thing I remembered from that haze after the Farseer discarded me – that I had a message for the Imperium's army here on this world. That we had to understand why they were here and that such knowledge could not be spoken with words – that it was bundled up inside my head instead, waiting for someone else to review and understand.

And that's what they did. Our psyker examined me and found it. The knowledge was enough for them to reconsider hostilities against the eldar. All this by tampering with the mind of an expendable guardswoman.

And that's how I received my honorable discharge from the Imperial Guard.

* * *

><p>It has been a long, long time since I've played Warhammer 40k. At least a decade. But after reading a very enthusiastic fanfic for the Imperial Guard I was inspired to write one of my own. I've been on fanfiction hiatus working on my novel and this is a reprieve from painful editing, as well as an attempt to get back into the swing of it and finish up some fanfic projects that got set aside. This is not a one-shot. There will be more. This is merely the prologue.<p>

And yes, I played eldar when I did play and I was terrible at it.


	2. New Employment

I woke to someone prodding my shoulder. It was thick finger, dispassionately insistent, and then the bastard flicked the lights on. On account of being the only woman among the security detail I had a private bunk. It was barely side enough for two people to stand side by side and half of that was taken up by my bunk, but it was mine. I'd been serving as the muscle for this particular merchant vessel for about four years now and quite enjoyed my job. My experience in the Guard meant I know how to hold a gun and my days bailing my employer's captain out of bar fights meant I know how to sucker-punch someone. My employer was far too prudent to require such babysitting. Our ship's captain was not. Fortunately, his piloting did not mirror his ground behavior, but I suspected that was mostly because our ship didn't so much as sail through the void as it wallowed. It was a merchant's vessel, after all. Regardless, it was a steady paycheck and far less dangerous. My rifle wasn't blessed by tech-priests, but it worked just fine for my purposes.

I threw my arm over my eyes and blearily tried to peer out with one, willing them to adjust to the sudden light. The man loomed over my bunk, arms crossed, backlit and casting a welcome shadow across my face.

"Shady Bruin. Your record shows you were honorably discharged from the Imperial Guard," he said and his voice fairly boomed in the small room. I couldn't tell if he was angry or if he always sounded like this. "On account of being tampered with by an alien psyker. I require your service anyway and should you prove unreliable, than by the Emperor, I'll put a bullet in your skull. I expect you on the flight deck in an hour."

That was how I met Inquisitor Marrishike.

The Kingfisher – that was our ship's name – sometimes took on passengers. It wasn't meant for such a thing but since we ran with a fairly small crew a number of the rooms had been repurposed for passenger quarters. Our captain was fairly select in who he accepted on-board. It was generally militant sorts, people who understood this was not a luxury ship and wanted to travel discreetly. Unfortunately, that often attracted the wrong types of passengers. They paid well. Criminals and Imperial agents often did. It didn't make for easy traveling company and my only consolation is that those types often stuck to themselves. I knew we had an Inquisitor on-board but as his type was prone to, he did not mingle and no one in their right mind sought him out. I hadn't even seen him until this point and wasn't sure how he'd gotten my name, much less my records. Or why, for that matter.

One did not simply ignore an inquisitor, however. As ordered, I was up and dressed and on the flight deck within an hour. When Marrishike walked over I even snapped to attention. Old habits died hard. The Inquisitor looked to be in his early fifties, still fit, wiry with muscle that came from necessity rather than intent. His gray hair was cut close to the skull in a standard military buzz. He was broad-shouldered and combined with a heavy jacket of black, adorned with Imperial seals, it gave him a formidable air. Everything about him was imposing. He had a gun at his belt, a sword across his back, and a rifle under one arm. His narrow eyes looked me up and down.

"Your captain and your record indicate you have sniper training," he said, "I am requisitioning that talent for when we make landfall. I need to move fast and I don't have the time to find talent planet-side."

In other words: he'd settle for damaged goods. I felt my indignation rising to the surface and frantically tried to quell the rebellious look in my eyes. He was an Inquisitor. One didn't resent an Inquisitor, not if you valued your life.

"Do you have something to say?" he asked. Apparently I had failed in hiding my emotions.

"Sir," I said tightly, "The incident with the elder was six years ago. I think anything they did is long gone."

His eyebrows rose slightly and he assessed me with a cold disapproval.

"If you think that, than you clearly don't understand the eldar."

"It was my impression – sir – that a guardswoman such as myself shouldn't try to understand the alien."

I was sincerely pushing it now. I had lived under the discharge long enough though and even though it had been delivered to me impassively, it hurt. 'We don't want you,' it said, 'We don't trust you. You're broken. You're more than useless – you're a liability.' I had nightmares for almost a year and a half after. I'd wake in the morning, tangled in my bed, and curl in on myself and cry. The eldar had not done this. Anything he had left in my mind had been rooted out and examined by the psyker, who then turned around and declared me unfit for service as a result. No, these scars were self-inflicted from the shock of being used and discarded by both the eldar and the Imperial Guard. They were left to rot and fester they did. I had told no one about what the eldar had done to me.

Marrishike was silent for a moment. Then he laughed. I could only stare in bemusement.

"True," he chuckled, "Very true. That's why Inquisitors exist. You may have been discharged from the Guard, Shady, but you can still serve the Emperor. I will see to it."

Fantastic. He gestured for me to follow and led me to a small ship, one of the few that was docked in the belly of the Kingfisher. It wasn't meant for travel through the warp, but it was fast and Marrishike explained that since we had dropped out of the warp he intended to make the last leg of the journey in his own ship and leave the Kingfisher behind. It'd catch up. He didn't want to wait any longer in his hunt. What, exactly, we were hunting was left unsaid. I wasn't surprised. I was just a stupid guardswoman. We didn't need to know more than what we were shooting at.

The Inquisitor had a pilot who barely looked back at us. The ship was a decent size with a common area and a few doors that surely led to an infirmary or bunkrooms. The Inquisitor hovered over the pilot's shoulder and I hovered in the hall just outside. The pilot was a skinny man, nervous in his movements, but seemingly well-at-ease with his employer. I wondered what sort of person could stand working with an Inquisitor for long. I had barely been around him for more than a handful of minutes and I was twisted up with nerves. He brought back memories I had tried to bury, things I told myself I was over. I marveled at the ease in which I adopted a Guard's mindset. The resignation towards the inevitable, the willingness to go where ordered without question. It made me wonder if perhaps I had never truly left the Guard, if I'd just been killing time all along and waiting to be asked to return, like some abandoned pet that hadn't gotten the hint that it was no longer wanted.

Some Commissars would have had me shot to ensure I couldn't be used as a weapon by the eldar. To ensure I wasn't some ticking time-bomb. Perhaps there was a reason for this – perhaps once a Guard, always a Guard, and death would be a mercy rather than this half-life of mine.

Marrishike watched us depart from the Kingfisher and then gave the pilot terse instructions to notify him when we were planetside. Our destination was one of three hub cities. I found it curious that Marrishike was picking the one that was on the far side of the planet. Whatever he was looking for, it was either in or close to that city. Unfortunately, I didn't know much of this planet and I told the Inquisitor so. He had left the pilot to his job and was now seated in the tiny common area inspecting his weapons.

"It's a standard Imperial world," he replied, "Average tech-level, strong Imperial presence, gravity and atmospheric conditions are close enough to Earth-standard that you won't notice anything different."

"Sounds ideal."

He shrugged.

"The tech-priests recruit heavily from here. They've done some terraforming."

And the Inquisitor had business here. Business that required a sniper. I felt the flutter of nerves in my belly.

"So what are we looking for?" I asked.

Marrishike only gave me a severe look. His frown could have chiseled marble, for how sharp it was.

"I need to know what to shoot at."

"You'll know," he only replied. It was apparent that was all I was going to get from him. Dourly, I sat down and absorbed myself with stripping down my gun and putting it back together. That one phrase actually told me a lot. If it were obvious, it meant that whatever Marrishike was chasing would not be able to pass very easily in normal society. That meant one of two things: chaos or aliens.

I hated both options.


End file.
